https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/Notes from the Library: winter folklore, old customs and odd history, the writers who made the ghost story, and now and then a classic tale shared in full.en https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/hellfire-club/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/hellfire-club/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Hellfire Club of Sir Francis Dashwood: mock monks at Medmenham Abbey, candlelit chalk caves at West Wycombe, and why the rumors outran the evidence. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-wendigo/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-wendigo/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Algernon Blackwood's 1910 story of a hunting party, an uneasy guide, and a call from above the winter trees. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/joanna-southcotts-box/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/joanna-southcotts-box/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Joanna Southcott's box, sealed until twenty-four bishops gather: the Devon prophetess, her seals, the Shiloh pregnancy, and the Panacea Society's long wait. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-seance-history/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-seance-history/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Victorian séance history: how two sisters' rapping knuckles launched spiritualism, filled respectable parlors with mediums, and changed horror forever. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/spirit-photography-history/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/spirit-photography-history/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Spirit photography history: William Mumler's ghostly portraits, the Mary Todd Lincoln photograph, the fraud trials, and why the pictures still unsettle. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-judges-house/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-judges-house/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Bram Stoker's 1891 haunted house classic of a student, a bargain lease, and an unusually bold rat. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/ghost-story-christmas-gift/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/ghost-story-christmas-gift/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000For the Victorians, a ghost story was a Christmas gift: seasonal books, fireside readings, a shiver shared. How to revive the tradition this year. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/liminal-places-folklore/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/liminal-places-folklore/Fri, 06 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000Liminal space folklore explained: why doorways, crossroads, bridges, and midnight have frightened every culture, and what the old beliefs knew. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/voynich-manuscript/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/voynich-manuscript/Wed, 04 Nov 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Voynich Manuscript: a fifteenth-century book of unknown plants, star charts and bathing women, in a script that has beaten every codebreaker who tried it. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/krampus-history/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/krampus-history/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Krampus legend: the horned Alpine devil who walks with Saint Nicholas on December 5, from carved masks and banned dances to numbered devils in Salzburg. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-christmas-ghost-stories/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-christmas-ghost-stories/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Victorians spent Christmas Eve telling ghost stories by firelight. Here is where that eerie tradition came from, and how to revive it this winter. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/yule-cat-and-yule-lads/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/yule-cat-and-yule-lads/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Icelandic Yule Cat and its family: Grýla the child-cooking ogress, her ragged husband, and thirteen troll sons who raid the farms before Christmas Eve. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/dickens-ghost-story-editor/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/dickens-ghost-story-editor/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000Dickens did more than write A Christmas Carol: as editor he built the Christmas ghost story into an institution. The impresario of the Victorian shiver. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/mari-lwyd/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/mari-lwyd/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000The Mari Lwyd, a ribboned horse skull on a pole, went door to door in south Wales between Christmas and Twelfth Night and had to win a rhyming duel to get in. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-signal-man/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/read-free-the-signal-man/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000Dickens's 1866 railway ghost classic of a lonely signal box, a spectral warning, and a scheduled disaster. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/black-dog-folklore/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/black-dog-folklore/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000Black dog folklore: Black Shuck, the Barghest, and the phantom hounds of the English lanes, from the Bungay church door to the Baskerville moor. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/advent-ghost-stories/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/advent-ghost-stories/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000An advent calendar of ghost stories: 24 classic winter tales, one for each December night, from The Signal-Man to Oh Whistle on Christmas Eve. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-cryptids/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/victorian-cryptids/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000Victorian cryptids were front-page news: sea serpents logged by naval officers, ape-men, and beasts that turned out to be real. The strange true history. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/mr-james-beginners-guide/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/mr-james-beginners-guide/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000New to M.R. James? Here is who he was, what makes his ghost stories so frightening, and the five tales to read first. A guide for the curious. https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/corpse-roads-crossroads/https://www.librarymirabilis.com/journal/corpse-roads-crossroads/Wed, 28 Oct 2026 09:00:00 +0000Corpse road folklore: the paths the dead were carried along, the crossroads burials, and why Britain's old ways are still walked carefully after dark.